


On Love

by amp_rs_nd



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Analysis, Gen, Jewish Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Love, Mostly Fluff, Multi, No beta we kayak like Tim, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, SAD-ISH ENDING, but...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29097354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amp_rs_nd/pseuds/amp_rs_nd
Summary: Jonathan Sims has always has been a lover at heart, even if he's often bad at showing it.An analysis of all those Jon has loved the most and how he loved them all differently.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist's Grandmother, The Admiral & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Verity Sims

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to write in a style I have zero experience with haha... plz don't look at me...
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I was going to post this all in one chapter but I got stuck on a few sections so I'm splitting it up so I can post the finished bits as they're completed. I can't guarantee I'll get to finishing all of these, but I want to try. Some of them are just a lil harder to approach than I'd expected.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loving Verity Sims was like a gentle reassurance, sturdy wooden doors and cracked book spines, firm hellos and goodbyes and unquestioned presences.

Loving Verity Sims was like a gentle reassurance, sturdy wooden doors and cracked book spines, firm hellos and goodbyes and unquestioned presences.

Jonathan Sims knew that very well, much more than he may have even known the woman herself. They never had much in common, apart from furrowed brows and corduroy pants and sporadic Friday night visits to the local synagogue once or twice a year if they remembered. 

There was little deeper understanding there. Jon always had a drive to learn and to know. He was endlessly stubborn and annoyingly picky from a young age, and it made him the type of person most wouldn’t enjoy being around. His grandmother didn’t have much of a choice in that matter, but thankfully, she didn’t seem to mind… too much. She gave him things to read, if not to stop him from going missing (again). She cooked him meals. By a certain age, he began cooking meals with her. Her smiles always shone differently when they did — like this shared culture was a small, precious thing to hold close. Of all that happened in Jon’s youth, at least there will always be that to look back on with a smile.

When Jon went off to college, he ended up falling mostly out of contact with her. They called as frequently as they used to visit synagogue; they talked about just as much as they always had, albeit with a few new details sprinkled in. Despite her tiredness, her ever-present scowl, she always wanted to listen, and pushed where she felt best. It was… nice. To talk and be talked to like that. Until then Jon never got that a lot. It was… sweet, knowing that after all those years she still cared, even if she often struggled to show it. (That was just another thing the two of them had in common.)

Young Jon had no way of knowing how much time he’d have left with her. He had no way of knowing that their last conversation would be of something so insignificant the thought of it alone made him cry for weeks. But that wouldn’t have mattered to him: not at all. The most important thing to come out of his relationship with his grandmother was that it made him realize that he, Jonathan Sims, had been born a helpless lover and would never, ever stop.


	2. Georgie Barker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loving Georgie Barker was like basking in the sun, the familiar assurance of overburned coffee on a balmy summer afternoon.

Loving Georgie Barker was like basking in the sun, the familiar assurance of overburned coffee on a balmy summer afternoon.

Jon had no shortage of things to love after his grandmother died. There was a gaping hole in his chest where her steady presence once stood. Days after it happened, he went to a campus support group (because why the hell not), and that was where he met _her_ for the first time.

Georgie Barker. He’d seen her walking around town a few times before, waiting at the bus stop across the road from the café he usually hunkered down at, and even back then he shamelessly recognized how wonderful she seemed. Jon had become quite good at finding things to love in all sorts of people, and for Georgie it was no different: the confidence in her gait, her loud, sure voice booming across the way and through the café doors when they slid open just in time to catch the sound, and it always made his breath catch in his throat.

Meeting her proper only gave him more things to love about her. Up close he could really catch her eyes: they were a deep, dark brown, so whole and encompassing he wanted to wade in and settle up to his neck in the warmth the colour promised. The first thing she really did towards him was give him an odd look for staring. (Jon had always had a weird problem with staring.) But he stammered out an apology and within moments she smiled. It was softer, sadder than he’d seen from her before, but it made sense. They _were_ at a support group, after all.

See, the thing is, Jon was not new to loving people at this time. He felt deep in his chest that he had always loved so fiercely, for so many people, since before he could remember. It was part of his nature. What he was not used to, however, was sharing that affection. Communicating it. And his prickly exterior usually drove people away before he took the time to try to voice his thoughts the first time.

Georgie, though— Georgie stayed. Georgie stayed for a long time. At the end of the meeting, they exchanged numbers, which turned into texting, which turned into meeting up once, then weekly, then twice a week, then going to parties and watching movies and doing other— other stuff Jon is ashamed to admit sort of muddles into a blur. Georgie never minded when he was quiet, when he shut himself off. She was always patient and so, so kind, and she always looked at him like she really understood. Maybe she did.

Eventually, they kissed. And they talked. And they were together, for a while, but how that was supposed to be any different from the sort of together they’d been in the first place, Jon never fully understood, though he always tried so hard to— for her. In the end, that was what caused their fallout. Jon just didn’t see her the same way she saw him. And— sure, even back then Jon had always known that was true, had never doubted it. Because maybe his love for Georgie had changed a little over time, bits and pieces shifting and melding apart and together and pulling with the tide, but it overall stayed the same. It was warm and all-encompassing and it was everything, and he thought he would very much like to have that love stay with him for all of his life. He tried to tell her, but it was either too much or too little, and it ended ugly. Jon tried so hard for weeks after the fact trying to convince himself that it was okay, that there would always be plenty more people and things to love, but that was never the point, was it? The point was that he would never again love anyone in the same way he loved Georgie Barker.


	3. The Admiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loving the Admiral was warmth.

Loving the Admiral was warmth. Even now, that’s all he can think to call it. _Warmth_. The very definition of the word itself. The same way he saw Georgie’s eyes when he got a good look at them for the first time, which might be part of the reason why it means so much to his relationship with the Admiral. 

The Admiral was everything Jon thought a good hug should be like. He was a Maine Coon, with a large flat nose and puffy, shaped cheeks, brownish tan with flecks of blond and rusty auburn sprinkled throughout. The Admiral made a very good pillow to cry on. He never seemed to mind— in fact, often times he enjoyed the attention. In the eight or so months he and Georgie were… _together_ together, the Admiral came to be lovingly, if not jokingly referred to as their son. Jon honestly would not have complained if that were the truth, although the taunting glint never left Georgie’s eyes when she mentioned it.

Georgie knew Jon loved the Admiral, and maybe that’s part of the reason why she insisted on keeping him after the break up. It hurt, so bad, like Georgie knew exactly what she was doing to him but did it on purpose. Jon couldn’t blame her, even when the wound was fresh and raw. He’d done bad, apparently, so he shouldn’t have deserved the cry pillow or the warmth.

For years afterward Jon would fall asleep to extended recordings of a purring cat right by his ear. When he had to stop he slept worse for it.


End file.
